


Way over Yonder in the Minor Key

by SBG



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Angst, Episode Tag, First Kiss, M/M, Missing Scene, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-05
Updated: 2015-03-05
Packaged: 2018-03-16 10:46:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3485354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SBG/pseuds/SBG
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Danny thought there was nothing that could be more torturous than being trapped in a small apartment with Steve, the oblivious object of his affection.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Way over Yonder in the Minor Key

**Author's Note:**

> Title thanks to Woody Guthrie. That's about the best of it, too. ;) Missing scene and tag to 5.17.

He was a masochist. He couldn’t think of any other reason he’d let himself be put in this situation. There were multiple ways they could have played the case that didn’t involve staking anyone out, yet he hadn’t even mustered a token protest. Now he was paying for it. The air in the small apartment was stifling, a nauseating mix of mothballs, cat litter, the sulfuric odor of microwaved omelets and Steve. Danny had started to feel suffocated by all of it a while ago, shortly after Lou had left with their fence, and since then the feeling had only ratcheted up more and more. The longer they were cooped in here, the more the Steve part of that equation was becoming the biggest problem. 

Day by day, working with Steve was hard enough, but to be locked up with him twenty-four seven was torture. Danny had tried to overcome this thing of his, he really had, and the more difficult it became to keep it suppressed, the more antagonistic he got with his partner. The endless sleepless nights didn’t help with that, but mostly he thought it was just self-preservation. Lashing out at any and everything was a defense mechanism; he didn’t need the therapist’s workbook to tell him that was what he was doing. Most of the time. Better to have Steve irritated with him than fond, because fond gave him hope where there was none.

Danny closed his eyes tight now and laid his head back, the sound of Steve plowing through yet more of Agnes’ food filling the room. The man was like a human vacuum. It was disgusting, truly, and yet not even a small deterrent. He’d tried. He’d been trying so very hard for so very long now he worried he was at breaking point. Here, now, trapped in a six-hundred foot old lady apartment. Even after Amber became Melissa, Danny had put forth more effort into a relationship than he had since Rachel. He still felt that desperate need for it to work with Melissa, though it was never going to. Hadn’t. It was because of Steve. 

Always Steve. 

Steve plopped on the sofa next to him, the faint squeak of the plastic setting Danny even more on edge. Ever since Barry Burns had mentioned how the cover didn’t have a negative effect on sex, it was all he could think about. With Steve so close, his scent growing stronger by the second, Danny was sure he would lose it. He lurched to his feet, moved for the window and opened it wide. He fell just short of sticking his head out to suck in fresher air, though that wasn’t off the table. 

“Come on, you’re being dramatic as usual,” Steve said with a huff. “It doesn’t smell that bad.” 

“Apparently I’m more sensitive to smell than you,” Danny said.

“Finding one thing you aren’t sensitive about is the real challenge.” Steve grumbled a few more words after that, too low to hear. 

“Yeah.” Danny waved off the commentary, whatever it was. Steve wasn’t the only one who didn’t always listen. “Yeah, whatever.”

The common gripe of Steve’s wasn’t strictly true, but the thing about Steve was this – his utter lack of sensitivity (at least toward him, Steve had been nothing but gentle and kind to sweet, old Mrs. Tennenbaum) only heightened Danny’s own reactions to the point he seemed histrionic when he was, in fact, behaving like a normal person. He had tried, had he said that? He wasn’t unaware of the irony that he was now putting double-time effort into making his and Steve’s partnership work the way he needed it to work, expending more energy than he had with Melissa. He wanted the intimacy of an honest dialogue if nothing more with someone who got it, got _him_ , on a level most couldn’t. He was never going to get the more, so at the very least he wanted Steve to listen and be open with him. He didn’t think there was harm in that. Not much, anyway.

Except there was, of course. And no, Danny thought, he couldn’t blame Steve for this predicament of his. Danny had to push buttons, go further than he’d ever done in the five years of knowing Steve by opening his mouth and saying things he knew would only cause himself grief. _Personally, I’d have gone with the gay thing._ Steve seemed to have no idea how true that one was, but with his partner standing there cradling a cat, Danny had wanted to go to his side and wrap an arm around his waist to sell it in that half a second before Steve spoke for both of them. Denied for both of them. Steve was always in charge even when he had no basis for it. _You’re a whacked-out control freak, okay, but I love you._ Steve had even less of an idea the truth behind that one.

They’d gotten pretty casual with dropping those three words with each other, to the point Danny wasn’t sure they hadn’t lost meaning for Steve. He himself meant them with his whole, stupid heart. It didn’t seem to matter that Steve didn’t reciprocate, or that he tended to downplay Danny’s input about everything – on the job or off. He should be able to turn off his feelings, use his brain. Unfortunately, love didn’t work that way. If it did, he wouldn’t keep getting hurt by it. He glanced at Steve, who seemed oblivious to his internal struggle.

“Hey, do me a favor,” Steve said. “Man up and get back over here. Maybe help me do the job.”

Danny rolled his eyes, but took another drag of outdoor air before he turned back into the room. Steve had a graceless sprawl going on, Mr. Pickles stretched long and lean across his torso and chest. Ridiculous. Head to toe ridiculous, that was what Steve was. Even with that awful creature cuddling him, Steve was gorgeous. He could hear the cat purring before he even reached the sofa. He glared as Steve stroked his right hand along the cat’s back, tried to focus on his dislike for the animal and not how strong and sure Steve’s hand looked. He took a deep breath, gave a fleeting look at the monitor.

“You know, for a criminal this girl is boring as hell,” Danny said. 

After Barry had left and they found out there was another player in this game, Emma Mills had done precisely nothing. Danny hated stakeouts in general for this very reason – tedium. The added tension of having a partner he’d like to jump only amplified his unease. Steve grunted his agreement and shifted, the movement making the sofa squeak. Once again, the innuendo planted in his head before cropped back up. He wondered what kind of sounds bare skin would…

Choking on that thought, Danny coughed to cover it. He had to get out of there. He beat a path to the bathroom, shutting himself in. With the door a barrier between them, maybe all thoughts of Steve, a plastic-covered couch and sex would also be locked out. He relieved himself, then took his time washing up. By the way things were going, they weren’t getting out any time soon, so he shucked his shirt off and splashed some of the grunge off. It actually helped, though a quick look in the mirror showed the shadows of fatigue under his eyes that he’d grown accustomed to, the slightly frenetic look of a caged animal somewhat new to the current situation. 

He went back to the living space and found McGarrett doing burpees in the space freed when they’d moved the sofa, watching the monitors at the same time. 

“What the hell are you doing?” Danny didn’t look at Steve’s ass. Or the ever-increasing breadth of his shoulders. Nope. “You animal, there are people in the apartment below us.”

“And?” Steve said, somewhat breathlessly. “I’m not used to being so sedentary. Exercise is good, you should try it once in a while.”

“You should try it, he says. I should try it? You’re unbelievable. I’ll have you know, I haven’t had any complaints about my athleticism when it counted the most. Also, with the racket you’re probably making, it won’t matter if that old lady spills the beans; the rumor mill will have us doing sex gymnastics all up in here.”

That stopped Steve, practically mid-burpee. Yeah, see. That. That instant shutdown was something his brain should take and run with, because the perfect partnership was absolutely not going anywhere near where Danny would like it to. It was obvious. All signs pointed to it, though once upon a time, Danny thought there had been hints of Steve returning his interest. Before he’d understood himself. Now he knew the song he wanted to play, but he was never going to find the right key. Any fool knew a song in the wrong key sounded awful. 

“You can watch our girl for a few minutes, Danny,” Steve didn’t pause for long, he never did. He switched to ab work, undoing his belt and unbuttoning his pants as he lay on the floor for old school crunches. “Can you do that for me, or would you rather read that damn book and come up with more bullshit to bitch about again?”

Danny knew defense mechanisms. Lately, that was all Steve was giving back to him. No wonder they couldn’t get anywhere. Danny said something, anything at all, and Steve could twist it to make it sound like he was a gigantic pain in the ass. He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. He knew Steve had gone through a lot in his life, a lot lately. His own feelings aside, he truly did just want Steve to find peace with all of it, and picking fights was hardly peace. 

“Fine.”

Pointedly grabbing a cookie and shoving it in his mouth, Danny then took up his position on the sofa. He wasn’t exaggerating; Emma Mills had to be the most boring thief in history. 

Then her girlfriend showed up and it got interesting for half a second. Steve got on the horn with Chin about it, but after they got the intel on the jewelry shop owner, there wasn’t much to do but listen to the women going at it. Which, yeah, it was titillating at first, but quickly wore thin. Danny retreated to the workbook again while Steve dozed. Frankly, the snores emanating from the guy sounded staged. It didn’t matter what Steve thought. Danny had started down this path, he wanted to finish it.

He was surprised at how revealing some of the questions were, about himself as well as Steve. He doubted his partner had any intention of looking at their homework, so he figured, what the hell. He was going to be honest. He poured his damn heart into it, glad if nothing else for the release, but as the sun went down and Steve continued to be mostly silent next to him, he started getting drowsy. He set the book aside and got a little more comfortable, making the sofa squeak himself. He let himself drift, fairly sure nothing was going to happen tonight, fairly sure Steve wasn’t as asleep as he was pretending. 

He could barely keep his eyes open. He would swear he heard the soft rumble of a familiar voice telling him to rest. Telling him it was okay, it was all right. It was that same voice which was the only thing that ever helped him sleep these days. Real or imagined, he didn’t much care as long as it got the job done. He felt a light touch on his foot, the afghan being draped across his shoulders and could only mumble a thank you. 

The ghost of fingers along the side of his face, well, that Danny knew was all in his head.

H50H50H50

He hadn’t seen Danny since their therapy session ended and his partner had dropped him at home. Steve sat at the edge of his beach on one of their chairs – shit, he’d thought of them as _their_ chairs for years, how had he not gotten it? – and stared at the ocean without seeing it. It wasn’t in his hands anymore and that scared him spitless. He’d tried. He looked at the guitar, nestled in the other chair. His heart tripped in what felt like an irregular beat. He’d felt that way for a while now. Too long, if he employed that old twenty/twenty hindsight thing. He had a thousand names and excuses for feeling so off balance – if it wasn’t Victor Hesse it was Wo Fat, if it wasn’t Wo Fat it was his mother, if it wasn’t his mother it was Joe White.

The truth was far simpler and much more complex than any of that. The truth was that it had been Danny setting him off kilter for a long time.

Steve had done more than read through that workbook the other night while Danny slept. He wasn’t ever going to be as … effusive with his emotions as Danny. He wasn’t. He didn’t have it in him, too much of that McGarrett Man Code still in control, though he knew that was bunk as well. That kind of thing wasn’t genetic, it was learned, and he’d been estranged from his father for a very long time. It was no longer valid reasoning.

No, that workbook had illuminated many issues about himself he didn’t like, one of those being that when it came to things he thought might hurt him, he excelled at running away. Him, the emotionless killing machine, as Danny would say with heavy sarcasm, fleeing for his life. From failure, from vulnerability, from emotion. From that one emotion that scared him the most. The irony wasn’t lost on him that those were the things he admired about Danny – his ability to falter, to put himself out there day in and day out. 

And still be one of the strongest people Steve knew. 

He had forgotten that about his partner, but the workbook had also re-shown him all of those things and more. He couldn’t pinpoint a specific moment when he’d first known on some unacknowledged level, about Danny. He couldn’t give himself a good reason why he had been running from his partner without moving an inch, using words meant to cut Danny cold. It was so ingrained now that it didn’t matter the whens and hows of it, this thing he kept buried so far down it took purposeful effort to bring to the surface. Purposeful effort might as well be a synonym for Danny, who he’d fought with every fiber of his being. He wasn’t sure why, now that it was too late. In his rush to keep his own feelings tamped down, he supposed, he had chosen to harp on Danny for his issues even as Danny was asking for more, using the therapy in earnest while Steve dismissed it and him. He started to feel vaguely ill at the mess he’d made.

He didn’t know anyone in their right mind who’d block his own cock, which only meant that he really was insane. Then again, he had tried with Cath and look where it got him. Nowhere. He was starting to believe maybe it hadn’t ever been meant to go anywhere. He didn’t know.

What he did know was this – he’d seen what Danny had put into that workbook and it made him want to be that person for Danny. Steve knew Danny hadn’t slept in more than fits and bursts since Colombia, it was written all over his face. He knew all it had taken was him telling Danny to rest, a touch, and his partner’s worn face had softened into sleep. He did that. He had that much of an influence on Danny, it had only felt right to _try_ to not run for once. He’d done the best he could, filling out that book. It hadn’t been easy, but less painful that coming right out with it. 

He’d done that, too. He’d shared a moment with Danny that showed his infallibility, something he didn’t like anyone to know. He’d learned Danny’s thoughts about him and had taken that chance. He had even been a millisecond away from going further and trying out the testimonial Barry Burns had given them about a plastic-covered sofa, when the cat distracted him. He’d quickly reverted to pattern and ran before he made a mistake he couldn’t take back. He’d been able to go back to usual, was prepared to tell himself it was what he wanted, until Danny sprang that guitar on him.

But then they went to therapy.

_“Aren’t you going to read it before we go in?” Steve asked. He held the blue workbook in the air, waggled it. He needed Danny to know. “Arm yourself with knowledge.”_

_Danny looked at him, a little smile on his face Steve might categorize as sad. It threw him for a loop, considering the high they’d both been riding. The guitar. The everything._

_“Don’t need to,” Danny said. “I have a pretty good idea what’s in there.”_

_Steve didn’t know what that meant, but it didn’t strike him as good. Danny sounded tired. He also didn’t want to start anything, but now he wondered if he had it all wrong. That all of the things Danny had written didn’t mean anything. It occurred to him that maybe Danny had put all that stuff down to make this their last therapy session, tune the song to the key the therapist wanted._

_He clambered from the car and trotted after his partner. It felt a little like he was going to a sentencing, which was stupid. He didn’t know how to read Danny all of a sudden and it set him on edge, made him think he should have run after all. He didn’t quite manage to catch up to Danny in time, couldn’t clear anything up._

_“Gentlemen, good to see you again,” the therapist said as they entered her office. “Please, have a seat.”_

_He glanced at Danny, who was smiling blandly at the therapist. That feeling in Steve’s heart amplified. Now he was glad Danny refused to read what he’d put down. In words. Stark, bare, honest words. Things he had only been able to acknowledge under duress, but which were truth nonetheless._

_“I see you have the homework with you, that’s a good sign.”_

_“Of course we do. Some of us even took it seriously,” Danny said, swiping the book from Steve’s hand and giving it to her._

_“I did take it seriously,” Steve said._

_Danny snorted._

_“I – Danny, I –”_

_“Do not even try to –”_

_“Before we start down this well-worn road again, perhaps you could give me a minute to peruse what you’ve written here,” the therapist said. She paged through the first several entries, her eyebrows rising at whatever it was she saw. “Well.”_

_In retrospect, he could actually see why Danny might think he hadn’t done the work. He stared hard at Danny’s profile, the stress lines cutting deep around his eyes again. Something more was going on, but he couldn’t figure out what, and Danny was being uncharacteristically reticent. Steve opened his mouth to say something, anything._

_“Okay, well,” the therapist said. She cleared her throat._

_Steve had almost forgotten where he was. He snapped his mouth shut and looked at her, catching out of the corner of his eye the way Danny glanced at him._

_“Have you two gone over what you put in here about each other? I am sensing by your continued antagonism toward each other, no.” The therapist took off her glasses. “In that case, I’m going to go a less traditional route and call this session over.”_

_She paused, but if she was waiting for a protest, it wasn’t coming from him or Danny. The one thing they agreed openly on these days was their dislike of this whole therapy thing._

_“I can see that I’ve been coming at your relationship from the wrong angle entirely and I need time to process. While I do that, I need you two to do more homework for me.”_

_That Steve and Danny did protest, synchronous burbles coming out of them. Both of them silenced at her finger in the air._

_“Hear me out. All I want you to do is go over this with each other. Once you do that, I think we’ll finally get somewhere.”_

Steve realized he was wallowing and how ridiculous that was. He had no right to wallow for something he had spent more time fighting against than for. He also had another choice to make. He’d seen what Danny had put into the workbook and in turn had put his own guts into it, opened himself to something he had actively struggled to keep in a strongbox. He glanced at the guitar, such a thoughtful gift – and it meant something. He hadn’t touched a guitar in twenty years, but he knew a valuable instrument when he saw one. 

Sucking in a deep breath, Steve pulled out his cell and sent off a quick text to Danny. _Come over._ Then, remembering that he came across as a whacked-out control freak (who Danny loved), he added _Please?_

He picked up the guitar, gave the strings a quick strum. He was sixteen again, terrified, but the guitar felt good in his hands. He started picking at it absently, twenty-some years out of practice and without a tune in his repertoire. Steve smiled, enjoyed the tone of the guitar, started playing with chords. He got lost in it, had forgotten the way making music – rough as it might be at the moment – made him feel. He hadn’t always held his emotions so close to his vest, after all. Before his mother, before life, he’d been much more open. If he thought about it, a few years ago he’d relaxed and had only reverted when life continued to throw so much shit at him and Danny, Danny. He transitioned to the minor keys, always loved the melancholic beauty of them. He closed his eyes and let them flow. 

“Sounds like you’re getting back into it.”

Steve twanged the strings too hard, startled. He twisted, saw Danny standing back a ways, casual in shorts and a T-shirt that looked soft but a size too small. How had he expended so much energy, years of it, battling that? 

“You came.”

“You asked,” Danny said, smiling. 

Danny shuffled to the other chair, sank into it. He seemed to have careful interest in the water, looking at the horizon instead of Steve. The silence was uncomfortable, charged. Danny got up after only a short while, paced a tight line next to Steve. 

“Danny,” Steve said after a minute. He placed the guitar gently in its case, shut it to keep the salt air out. “I guess we should tal –”

“No.”

With a half-strangled sound that seemed to come deep from his throat, Danny halted in front of him. Steve had a fraction of a second to gauge where this was going before Danny leaned down, hands on the chair’s arms as he buffeted Steve in. Oh. Sixteen year old Steve would have been down the beach a mile by now. This Steve smiled the very moment Danny’s lips crashed against his, this first attempt at a kiss messy and raw and he moaned into it as Danny slid his tongue into his mouth. Talented, talented. 

“I read what you wrote,” Danny said, breathless as he tore from the kiss after a good long while. His eyes were hopeful, but hooded with caution as well. 

“I meant it all,” Steve said, certain now this was real and what he wanted. "Every word, Danny."

“Then we’re already done talking.” Danny smiled, big, bright and relieved, and returned to kissing him.

Steve thought if this was what it was going to be like from now on, then they’d wasted enough time. He surged to his feet, nearly knocked Danny off of his. Swooped Danny close, abandoned the guitar on the lawn and pulled his partner with him into the house, where he knew soon there’d be much sweeter music.


End file.
